Betsy sez, “The Irish Independent reported this morning that Ireland’s national collection of personal data has been raided by various government employees for various reasons. One ‘civil servant mole’ (the Independent’s words) passed on private data that his brother used to burgle one businessman and try to blackmail others. When confronted, the ‘mole’ told police that:”

It is a common practice amongst civil servants to check up on the financial status of friends, family, and acquaintances… Other records accessed out of ‘curiosity’ included those of a politician, pop star, and a ‘notorious criminal.’ The department was unaware of the breach until detectives..told them the criminal had sensitive information in his possession and he had received it from his civil servant sibling.

“If you wonder why the ‘Data Protection Section of the Department of Family and Social Affairs’ didn’t flag these ongoing abuses of personal data — that happens to be the department that employed the mole.”
Link
(Thanks, Betsy!)

Irish bureaucrats raided personal info database for blackmail, burglary, and curiosity

Originally from Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow